Housing Demand Normalizes as Supply Dwindles, BCREA
Vancouver, BC – April 13, 2017. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 9,826 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in March, down 21.8 per cent from the same period last year. Total sales dollar volume was $6.79 billion, down 30 per cent from March 2016. The average MLS® residential price in the province was $690,597, a 10.5 per cent decrease from the same period last year.
“Consumer demand continues to normalize following blockbuster home sales in 2016,” says Brendon Ogmundson, BCREA Economist. “However, the supply of homes available for sale has not recovered and is still declining in many markets around the province.”
Although the average price in BC was down year-over-year due to a shift in the composition of sales away from higher-priced homes in Greater Vancouver, home prices in most markets are being pushed higher due to severe supply constraints. This is particularly true for the Victoria region, which currently has just over one month of inventory for sale, as well as for the apartment and townhouse market in the Lower Mainland.
Year-to-date, BC residential sales dollar volume was down 34.7 per cent to $14.1 billion, when compared with the same period in 2016. Residential unit sales declined 25.5 per cent to 20,893 units, while the average MLS® residential price was down 12.4 per cent to $674,856.
“Consumer demand has returned to a more typical level over the first two months of the year,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. “While the home sales have declined nearly 32 per cent from the extraordinary performance of a year ago, last month’s activity reflected the average for the month February since the year 2000.”